IL GLICINE : ecological work and job opportunities for young people

Il Glicine was founded in 1986. It has 46 members. Five of them are working for the cooperative along with two other people employed by the cooperative.All workers are young, formally marginalised people. In fact Il Glicine is an attempt of a number of families to create job opportunities in the field of ecological work: maintainance of parks and gardens and growing of plants and flowers.

In 1988 the municipali ty (comune)of Buccinasco gave Il Glicine a former rubbish dump measuring 4.000 m2. Il Glicine turned it into a park and later developed it, growing plants and flowers to sell to the general public.

Il Glicine is particularly keen on offering job opportunities to disabled people and (ex)drug addicts, giving them the chance to learn a new job by participating in vocational training and cooperating with Enaip (the Catholic workers movement training center that receives funds from the European Social Fund). The work is seen as the only kind of therapy really needed by these young people. Their salary follows the national standard in use for agricultural workers.

All adminitsrative and financial activities are run on the basis of voluntary work. The total budget of Il Glicine is of around 300.000.000 It. Lire (around 200.000US $).

The cooperative is pretty busy "surviving", but would welcome exchange of information with similar experiences.